Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to speak to this bill, the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year And Other Measures) Bill 2023, I want to put on the table that there is absolutely no doubt, 100 per cent, that students need support. Students are doing it incredibly tough: students trying to live on the student allowance, students trying to live on the youth allowance, students struggling with having to work virtually full time and do full-time studies at the same time. They have got to work full time just to be able to afford to pay the rent, so there is absolutely no doubt that students need a huge amount of extra support. The question is: how should this support be given? And there are so many other ways that we could be supporting students. The Greens are supporting this bill because you can't stand in the way of extra support for students, but it is not to say that we think that this is the most appropriate way for us to be supporting the students. There are so many other ways that we could be supporting students.

One way of doing it to begin with of course would be to wipe student debt, but, rather than wiping student debt, what is this government doing? They are putting it up. The average student debt of $24,770 is going to rise by $1,758, and, for more than half a million people who have got debts of around $40,000, it is going to add another $2,840 to the student debt. If you are a student, you are struggling; you can hardly afford to eat, and you know that when you leave your studies you are going to have this massive debt that you have got to be able to cope with. But, at the same time as you are going to continue to be paying skyrocketing rents let alone thinking that you may be able to afford to buy a house, you have got this massive burden around your neck. There is so much that we could be doing to be helping students and setting students up for a positive life ahead. But, instead, what's happening is that there are so many people that are choosing to abandon their studies, even with supports like this, which I'm sure would be welcomed, because they cannot afford to continue studying. During the poverty inquiry, which I am chairing, we have heard story after story of students who are saying just how tough it is and how they want to be able to keep studying but they just can't afford to do it.

The other thing that we could be doing, of course, is making tertiary education free, or making all education free. I think back on my student years—yes, some 40 years ago now. We are a richer country now than we were 40 years ago. So why is it that 40 years ago I was able to get a tertiary education completely for free and today students are ending up with massive loans around their neck? All that this legislation before us today is going to do is increase the massive loan that they are going to have to lug around when they leave their studies.

I really want to commend my colleague Senator Faruqi for her important work on this piece of legislation, both through the Senate inquiry into this bill and through the amendments that she has circulated. She has foreshadowed an amendment to the second reading motion for this bill that calls on the government to wipe student debt, which would make a genuine difference to many students and graduates. I really urge the government to act on this issue because, if we want to be helping students, that would be a massively significant way to help them rather than adding to their debt burden.

The other thing that the government could be doing is raising the rates of student allowance and youth allowance above the poverty line. Nobody deserves to be living in poverty in this country. If you are studying, you cannot do your best at your studies if you are living in poverty. Even with the poverty payments of student allowance and youth allowance, too many students are locked out of them by an unfair system. A survey done by the National Union of Students found that being locked out of youth allowance negatively impacted students' financial wellbeing—86 per cent of the survey respondents said that—their mental health, according to 65 per cent, their education, according to 60 per cent, and their experience of domestic or family violence.

I want to share some of the direct accounts that were gathered by the National Union of Students in their powerful report. Jesse, aged 23, said: 'One day, a friend and I were having a chat about how much youth allowance and other payments from work we were receiving, and we realised that we were living way under the poverty line. That's when it really hit me that this isn't the way that I should be living right now.' Darcy, at the age of 23, said: 'Receiving the COVID supplement'—which, of course, was when allowances were above the poverty line—'was the first time in my life that I experienced financial stability, which was a real revelation to me. It's actually this easy to not suffer, and this is the choice that this government is making.' Sarah, aged 23, said: 'Receiving the COVID supplement in 2020 meant that I didn't have to stress so much about work and losing my job. My grades actually went up a lot during that period because I was able to focus more on my degree.'

I think it's really worth paying attention to this. If we as a country want to be doing our best—if we want to be building the skills, building the knowledge and building the workforce of the future—we need to be making sure that our students have got the ability to do their best. Currently, living in poverty and being burdened by massive amounts of debt is not the way to encourage students to be their best or to keep at their studies.

Another student said: 'If I'd received youth allowance payments, I would have probably, as a disabled person, been able to work less and focus more on my education. I ended up having to study part time and take time off in order to work and pay rent.' This is such a common story. Darcy, aged 23, said: 'The scariest part of it was that I needed to get verification from my parents that it was unreasonable for me to live at home.' That is a ridiculous barrier that people face in accessing youth allowance. Often, when it's not safe for people to live at home, it's difficult to get that proof, and people usually won't even have a relationship with their parents.

We can do much better than this. The choices that this government made are just that—they are choices. We could be choosing differently, just like 40 years ago: it was a choice that the government—